Proliferation

How to spell proliferation

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce proliferation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proliferation mean?

1. nounA rapid increase or spread in the number of something.

Proliferation in a sentence

• The proliferation of streaming services has split household budgets across many subscriptions.

• Treaties were drawn up to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Where does proliferation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reached English through French prolifération in the nineteenth century, originally as a term in biology for the rapid multiplication of cells. It was built from the Latin pieces proles, meaning 'offspring' or 'young', and the verb ferre, meaning 'to bear' or 'to carry', so the literal sense is something close to 'a bearing of offspring'. The matching adjective 'prolific', describing a plant or animal that produces abundant young, arrived a little earlier and shares the same proles root. From its scientific home the noun spread into general use for any rapid increase, and by the twentieth century it was firmly attached to the spread of weapons, especially nuclear arms. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: the schwa vowels in 'pro-LIF-er-a-tion' give no clue to the single f and the e before the r, so the parts are easy to garble.

How the word is built

• prol- (from proles: offspring)
• -fer- (from ferre: to bear, carry)
• -ation (noun of action)